Are you worth love?

Hello, Steve Barnes here. Hope that the life writing live broadcast works well today. Sometimes there's a little something different about the way it works when I use it off my phone as opposed to off my desktop computer here in my office with also my gym and other stuff. But at any rate, I wanted to talk to you today and it's another one of those kind of complex conversations. So you're gonna have to tolerate me doing some reading because it took me some time to organize my thoughts on this. The one promise I can give you if you'll tolerate me, is at the end of this essay, I'm going to give you the secret. This is about relationships. At the end of the essay, I'm going to give you the secret to having anyone you want. And I'm not joking, I'm not kidding. But you have to listen to the whole thing for that to make sense. So stick around. Okay. On another thread, a lady named Anasa Troutman proposed a new rule for relationships that you get to interview the last two people they dated. I thought that was great. Somebody mentioned that Tia and I had pretty much done that. And when they tagged me, it brought me into the conversation. I answered that it was close. We had almost done that, not quite that. The first time she came to visit me in Vancouver, Washington, from Miami, I sat her down in a room with my ex wife and my daughter and told them to talk about anything that they wanted and. And walked out and left them there for an hour. I wanted t to have all the information she needed to make an informed decision. She had that right. She had more than that right. I loved her enough to want her to be happy. I mean, it's really simple as that. Anasa said, stephen, how did you get to that kind of selflessness? So many of us want to hide the things we think will drive the ones we want away. For many, being vulnerable is still difficult after years of marriage, much less before the journey is hardly underway. Did you do this for her? Or was that kind of transparency something you did for yourself because of some personal commitment or practice? And this struck me as a question that was really worth answering. So I decided to slow down and try to answer to the best of my ability. And I'll answer it from the framework of storytelling. Okay, there's something. The life writing system uses three different stories to kind of set up the context. And. And here's what I call my child story. Once upon a time, there was a boy who wanted three things when he grew up. He wanted a writing career. He wanted to Be a martial artist. And he wanted a family to love. He was afraid that he couldn't have these things. And everyone told him that he couldn't have them. There was too much to ask for from life. But he decided to try and work a little harder every day and never quit. He found wonderful teachers along the way, learned things and still fell on his face. But every time he did, he found the faith to keep going and got back up, changed his approach, found someone who knew better than him and followed their lead. And tried and tried and tried. And one day, he got it all. That's my story. It's the story I tell myself every single day. Whenever life feels hard, I got what it was I asked for as a child. What better life than that? And I didn't ask for my life to be easy. I asked to be strong so I could deal with my life. I asked for a life of meaning, not a life of ease. Now this is how these ideas applied the specific question of finding a mate. Let's start with one of my greatest failures in life. It was tough. When my first marriage went south. I was devastated. I screwed up totally, and I swore I wouldn't do that again. I wanted a partner, love. Someone I could really share my life with. And I was prepared to not settle for anything less than that. I knew that the woman I desired was smart, ambitious, beautiful, sensual, creative, fun, fierce. I wanted a lioness. And the natural reality is so damn simple, people don't want to look at it. A lioness wants and needs a lion. Bam. No excuses. Simple. Deal with it or don't. The question was, am I a lion? What about all my doubts and fears and damage? Could I be a lion despite all my doubts and fears and damage? There's a story about a lion cub who was adopted by a flock of antelope. He grew up believing he was an antelope. Then one day, the flock was attacked by a pride of lions. They fled and several were caught and killed. The lion cub was cornered and trembled, awaiting death. The lions looked at it with curiosity. And the chief lioness suddenly realized what the problem was. She took the cub by the neck and dragged it down to the river. Look at yourself, she said. You are not an antelope. You are a lion. The cub looked at his own reflection for the first time. He saw, and he was transformed. Here's a theory for you. What your heart craves is the mirror of your soul. Meditation. Going deeply into your essence and asking, what do I crave? Desire, want and need. Separating wants from Needs short term pleasures from long term joys. That is a process of awakening. You have to know what you want and you have to believe that you can and should have it. You have to love yourself. You love yourself enough to believe that there is a gift within you worth anything anyone could offer. There's a popular song on the radio right now by a group called Fifth Harmony called Baby, I'm Worth It. Jason loves that song. I won't try to sing it, but the lines go. Give it to me. I'm worth it Baby I'm worth it. Uh huh. I'm worth it. Gimme gimme. I'm worth it. Just give me you, Just give me you Just give me you. That's all I want to do. And if what they say is true, if it's true, I won't get mad at you. I may talk a lot of stuff, guaranteed I can back it up. I think I'm going to call you a bluff. Hurry up. I'm walking out front. Every time I hear that song, I'm so happy the girl is singing that because I thought that's a little girl who's still in touch with the princess, the goddess. In her heart she knows that what she has is worth it. And I think that everyone should feel that way about themselves. That we have a treasure in our hearts worth anything anyone can offer. And if that particular person doesn't see it, fine. Go with God, have a wonderful life and find happiness with someone who will be better for you next. There is always somebody else. You have to believe in yourself enough to to see that no one on this planet is above you. You know what the cost of that is? To give up all sense that you are better than anyone else. That's it. Think you're better than others, you'll always be afraid that there are others better than you. Knowing that you're worth it doesn't mean that others aren't. Can you grasp that? So my task was to find that sense of self worth. What if the person you want isn't interested? Well, either my judgment is off or theirs is. In either case, it's nothing to stress about. As long as you actually love yourself, you know that somebody who's got good judgment is going to be attracted to you. The friend zone stings a bit, but it's fine. I've been friend zoned plenty of times and I've friend zoned plenty of ladies who were interested in me but weren't the right fit. And it's only fair. That's just the way Life is. It's nothing personal. We just didn't fit. If Tananeri looked closely at me and saw that we didn't fit, it was her obligation to back away. It's hella better now than 10 or 20 years down the road, don't you think? But to have that clarity, you have to start with the sense that you are precious, that you are worth it. Perhaps with the sense that there's a precious child within you. Why is this so powerful? Because we're wired to protect children and see them as beautiful and filled with infinite potential. This is the feeling we get when we look deeply into our own hearts, find the light within us and form that into a child self and adore that child. It might take some time to do this, especially if we were not treasured as children or we betrayed ourselves. We can do that by selling out our dreams or being in inappropriate sexual relationships. Allowing people to treat us as less than precious. That's a form of inner child abuse. I did that once. It took me a year of daily meditations to heal, but it was worth it. It's a story for another time. There's another thing. It's of special interest, I think, to black folks. This was a conversation on a black thread. What if you are attacked by your culture? If the majority broadcasts images that say you are not as beautiful, wonderful, brilliant, sexy, valuable. If the images they offer themselves and their own children a thousand times a minute on every movie screen, television screen, video, song, billboard, are not the same images that they offer to you, well, you have more work to do. No, it's not fair. If you want fair, you're looking at the wrong world. Stand on the shore down at the beach and say, it isn't fair for the tide to come in and make your shoes wet. You'll get wet shoes Screw fair. You have to be willing to fight for your heart in the way a mother lion fights for her cubs. Period. Or the cub inside will look at you and say, why, Mommy? Wasn't I worth fighting for? Wasn't I beautiful? Wasn't I wonderful? Didn't I dance enough for you? Why don't you love me enough to fight? Hell yes. That child is worth fighting for. No compromises, Period. If, when you close your eyes and ask what you want and need in a mate, you see someone fierce, ambitious, passionate and strong, you're dreaming of a lion who wants and needs a lioness, or vice versa. And here's the beautiful thing. If you love yourself and are working on yourself, you'll grasp that you're doing the best that you can with what you have and that's wonderful. And you'll be attracted to others who are at the same point in their journey, who are as far from their perfection as you are from yours. You're climbing the same mountain at the same rate on the same trail. It's wonderful. It feels miraculous once you experience it. The work to do is intense. You have to be willing to shed the illusions, to dig down in your heart, to ask that inner essence what you really desire. And if it is in alignment with your conscious hopes and dreams and values. Get to work. Here are some game changing ideas. 1. Admit to what you really want. Stop compromising. 2, Commit to being the kind of person who can attract and hold that kind of partner. 3. Love yourself enough to forgive yourself for not being perfect. No one is. But the instant you really accept yourself, you'll be able to open your heart to someone who's as far from their perfection as you are from yours. 4. Find allies. Talk to people who are in love and have been in love long enough to produce grandchildren, say 20 years or so. They are the winners of the mating game, whether they actually had children or not. 5. Talk to people who are as close as possible to your ideal partner. Ask what they are seeking in a partner. If you've chosen carefully, what they describe is what your heart truly wishes to be. Not for them, but for you. 6. The best meditation that is most powerful and safe is simply sitting quietly and. And listening to your heartbeat. Keep bringing your thoughts back there again and again. All there is is love. All other thoughts are the stuff you have to move beyond to connect to your essence. In other words, you have to believe that you're worth it. Oh, I promised you the secret to getting anyone you want. It's simple. Can you see it? Think about what I've been saying and try to guess what I'm going to say next. I'll give you, you know, give you a few seconds. Okay. The secret to having anyone you want. Don't want anyone you can't have. No, I'm not playing a word game by knowing yourself. You know your tribe. Then simply look for members of your tribe who have their green light on. Those are the ones looking for partners. Go deeply enough, know yourself enough and all you'll see in the world through the mating filter. Well, actually, all you'll see in the world are wonderful human beings because we're all connected. And a few of those wonderful human beings will be of your tribe and have their green light shining. Approach them if you don't get the right approach. You weren't perceptive enough. It's your issue, not theirs. Do more work. Here's what I promise you. If you do enough work like this, you'll hit a point where you stop making mistakes. Do that and it feels like the world is filled with wonderful people who want you. In the same way that if you buy a new car, suddenly you see that car everywhere on the street. It's bizarre. It's the reticular activating mechanism kicking in. That's another discussion. You know, when you do this, if you get this, you might, you know, play the field a little bit at that point. I know I did, and it was certainly fun. But I got tired of it. I realized that what I really wanted was a partner. That's what this journey was about. Someone I could share my life with, who I could really be with, without masks or games. And when I realized that, I literally dropped to my knees and prayed for it, asked God or the universe or whatever was listening to help me, said that, okay, I got it. I understood the game, understood how it all worked, and I didn't want to play. And I was willing to wait for the rest of my life, if necessary, to find the right woman. And the very next morning, I met Tanavarif. Namaste. If you've enjoyed this message, please share it. If you want to know more about the Soulmate process, go to www.SoulmateProcess.com. but other than that, I wish all of you love and happy health and happiness. Thanks for listening. Take care, guys. Bye bye.